


(Jump right in and) swim until you're free

by somnambulants



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 12:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8578726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnambulants/pseuds/somnambulants
Summary: Maggie wants to kiss Alex back with a kind of desperation that is almost embarrassing. 
   She’s caught herself thinking about her lips more than once, wondering what they would feel like against her own, but had brushed the thought off because Alex had been straight and Maggie had a girlfriend.      Until she wasn’t. And she didn’t.  or: the aftermath of that kiss





	

Maggie wants to kiss Alex back with a kind of desperation that is almost embarrassing. 

She’s caught herself thinking about her lips more than once, wondering what they would feel like against her own, but had brushed the thought off because Alex had been straight and Maggie had a girlfriend. 

Until she wasn’t. And she didn’t.

it’s the way that Alex kisses her that sets off alarm bells in her mind, because when someone kisses as forcefully as she is, they're definitely trying to prove something. 

And Maggie can’t let herself be a part of that. 

 (it’s probably kind of selfish too, but she doesn’t want Alex to look back at this and regret it. She doesn’t want Alex to associate her first kiss with a woman as her just trying to prove that she’s gay)

So she pulls away, as gently as possible; watches the hurt bloom in Alex’s eyes until it feels like she can’t breathe, then she watches Alex walk, _run,_ away from her as though she can’t get away from her fast enough and kind of wants to kick her own ass for handling it so badly. 

She flinches in surprise when Darla pops up out of nowhere and slams a drink down on the pool table beside her. 

As she turns around, she gives Maggie a scathing look. “Looks like you ruined that too.”

Maggie sighs because _yeah - she totally did._

 

-

The next time she’s called out to a crime scene is a few days later and, when she doesn’t immediately see Alex there, her heart kind of gives a little spasm in her chest because _what if last night meant that Alex didn’t want to see her anymore?_

She hadn’t returned either of the texts that Maggie has sent her over the past two days and Maggie prides herself on being emotionally detached most of the time, but she can even admit she’s starting to lose it when it comes to Alex.

The only upside to this whole thing is that she doesn’t have to mope for too long. 

Supergirl turns up not long after Maggie herself, with Alex in tow. Neither of them seem to notice Maggie standing by the tape cutting the crime scene off from the rest of national city. Not at first, anyway.   Supergirl spots her before Alex does and for whatever reason, Maggie gets a calculated, borderline hostile look sent in her direction. 

She watches the superhero turn to Alex to say something before she takes off into the sky, presumably searching the area for the few perpetrators they have still yet to round up. 

Still standing in the place where she’d been with Supergirl, Alex cranes her neck to watch her disappear and then freezes when her eyes flick in Maggie’s direction and spot her.

Maggie smiles at her, hopefully and gets a weak wave of greeting in return. Alex doesn’t come over to her - she very noticeably keeps her distance - and the second Maggie goes to walk in her direction, she miraculously happens to vanish before she can take more than a few steps.

It’s hours later before she’s getting anywhere near ready to leave the scene, and it’s dark and Alex is nowhere to be seen. 

But Supergirl is. Having returned from wherever she’d been, she’s chatting enthusiastically to one of Maggie’s co-workers. 

When Maggie goes over there, she falls silent,.

“Detective Sawyer, right?” Supergirl says, appraising her, as she crosses her arms over her chest. The intensity radiating off her makes Maggie feel like she's under a microscope..   

It’s Maggie’s job to deal with criminals - and not be intimidated by them - but the menacing look in Supergirl's eye is almost enough to make her falter. 

“That would be me,” she says.   It’s silent for a second and, just as Supergirl opens her mouth to say something else, Alex appears at her side.

“Supergirl,” she says, avoiding Maggie’s eyes. “You can go - I’m sure you have better things to be doing.”  

If Maggie didn’t know better, she’d think that Alex was glaring at National City’s hero. 

“Oh!” Supergirl exclaims. “Yes. Of course. It was nice meeting you, Detective Monk.”

And then she flies off without an acknowledgement in Maggie’s direction and Maggie isn’t sure if she should be insulted by the dislike Supergirl seems to harbour for her or worried by the way Alex still hasn't looked at her. 

  “Danvers,” she says tentatively, kind of wanting to wince because Maggie Sawyer doesn’t do _tentative_. 

Alex finally looks at her and gives her a weak smile. “Sawyer,” she returns. “I - um - should really get back to, you know.”

She points behind her and Maggie reaches out to touch her arm before she can disappear again. “Look, Danvers, I -“

“We really don’t need to go into it,” Alex cuts her off quickly, starting to look like she might actually flee in order to avoid hearing her say another word. “I get it .. loud and clear.”

Maggie doesn’t think she does. “About the other night, I -“  

“No really,” Alex says and actually backs away from her. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

  “I think we do,” Maggie argues. “Because you’re obviously not okay with it.”

Alex crosses her arms over her chest and starts to look like Maggie’s words have offended her. “I’m fine, actually - it’s just been like 42 hours since the last time I slept and i’m kind of exhausted. “

Maggie deflates because now Alex looks kind of angry and she doesn’t know what to do to fix it and she really _hates_ feeling helpless like this.

“I’m sorry,” she apologises, her voice carefully neutral. “I just - we’re still okay, aren’t we?”

An unreadable expression flickers across Alex’s face and she doesn’t answer for one, long drawn out second that makes Maggie have to resist the urge to fidget nervously.   

But then she gives Maggie something that looks like it should be a smile but comes out looking more like a grimace. “Yeah. We’re totally fine.”

-

 

Everything seems to go back to normal between her and Alex after their conversation - or as normal as it can be with Alex not returning her calls or texts but still turning up to her crime scenes and acting like nothing is wrong. 

Maggie doesn’t bring it up. She doesn’t say it out loud to herself but she knows she’s afraid that Alex might stop talking to her altogether if she says anything about it. So she pretends everything is normal and wants to not care.

At least, while Alex is there. When she’s not around, Maggie stops pretending everything is okay and most of the people she knows give her a wide berth of space because of it. 

Rationally, she knows she shouldn’t care as much as she does, but she does and it sucks.

“Detective Sawyer.”

Maggie looks up from where she’s been kneeling on the ground and squints to find Supergirl is looking down at her. 

“Supergirl,” she greets, bitingly, because _yes_ , this may be National city’s hero in front of her, but she’s also been a pain in Maggie’s ass for weeks. Glaring at her every time she so much as glances in Alex's direction. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Supergirl frowns at her, looking as though she’s never been spoken to by other people with anything other than reverence in their voices, which Maggie supposes that it is probably pretty close to the truth. 

“I was wondering if you’d figured out what the cause of this is yet?” she says, but it sounds uncertain, like she had meant to say something else.   

Maggie unfolds from her crouch and straightens up. “Not yet. We’re working on it but I’d say it was probably just a rogue alien encounter. It doesn’t look like this guy actually meant to hurt anyone.”

She kind of hopes that will be the end of it and Supergirl will walk away but nothing seems to be going Maggie's way these days.

“The body count kind of says something different,” Supergirl shoots back at her, looking defiant, like she’s trying to catch her out on something. 

“Yes,” Maggie grits her teeth because she’s not supposed to punch superheros - not even when they question her ability to do her job. “but the wounds on the victims bodies are inconsistent. If he was really trying to kill them it would have been more precise.”

Still looking defiant, Supergirl goes to open her mouth but stops when her eyes settle on something over Maggie’s shoulder. Maggie turns around to look and sees Alex, lifting the tape around the scene so that she can duck under it. 

“Excuse me,” Maggie says hurriedly and could probably rival Supergirl for speed in her hurry to get over to Alex. 

Behind her, Supergirl mutters something under her breath but she could literally not care less at this point.

“Danvers!” she greets, when she's a few feet away, and the minute Alex sees her, her entire expression shuts down. 

“Hey, Maggie.”

“I was hoping i’d see you at the bar at some point last night.”

Alex avoids her eyes. “Oh yeah - work, you know.”

Maggie follows her as she walks around her and tries not to picture how overly-eager she probably looks to everyone else around them - even Supergirl is watching them talk. “What about tonight?” she continues.   

Alex keeps walking. “I -um - I don’t know, Maggie.”

Maggie should let it go at that - usually she knows when to stop pushing and here is probably it - but she can’t help herself. “Oh, come on. You don’t even want to give me a chance to win back all the money you’ve cheated out of me?”

For a second, she thinks it won’t work, but then Alex turns around.

“I could sit there and do nothing but watch and still win.”

“Ouch,” Maggie says. “You wound me, Danvers.”

Alex’s responding smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes and it tugs at Maggie’s insides.

That night she goes to the bar and waits, hovering by the pool table, for hours. 

Alex doesn’t show up. 

Maggie didn’t really expect her too, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t hoping she would. She must look really pathetic too because Darla is being more forgiving towards her than she’s ever been since they broke up.

She dials Alex’s number when she leaves, well after midnight, after having more than a few drinks and finds herself surprised when she actually picks up with her voice sounding thick with sleep and a bit of confusion.   “Maggie?”

“Hey,” Maggie says, and her own voice sounds miserable to her ears. There’s the sound of rustling - sheets presumably as Alex moves around in bed. 

 “Is something wrong?” Alex asks her, more alertly. “Is there something the DEO needs to know about -“

Maggie laughs. “I’m not calling about work.”

“Then why are you calling?”

“I just …wanted to talk to you.”

If she was sober, Maggie would probably be kicking herself for sounding so vulnerable right now. But she’s drunk enough that it seems reasonable to tell Alex - not enough to actually tell her how much she misses her though.

Alex is silent. “I think I need time on my own,” she says quietly. “Like you said.”

Maggie wants to tell her _no_ , wants to be selfish and tell her that she wants her around, but she can’t do that because she knows Alex well enough to know she would feel guilty about it, so instead she closes her mouth and hopes that Alex doesn’t hear the slight break in her voice as she responds.

“…If that’s what you need.”

Alex’s voice is final. “I do.”

 

-  
 Weeks go by with no direct contact. Maggie tries her best to abide by what Alex wants because she knows what its like - she knows how hard it can be and she doesn’t want to make it worse for her.

But she misses her. 

They still cross paths at crime scenes and talk to one another, but only about the case they're both working on. Never about anything remotely personal. Maggie spends most of her downtime at the bar, pretending that she isn’t moping. 

(she _is,_ of course, and the way that even Darla is starting to be semi-friendly towards her tells her that everyone else knows it too)

So, to combat her sudden misery, Maggie drinks on the nights that she can afford to wake up with a hangover the next morning. 

And lucky for her, tonight is one of them.

“I just wish…” she’s approaching slurring territory but it seems imperative to her brain that M’gann hears what she's about to say. “I wasn’t such a good person, you know?”

The polite smile on the M’gann’s lips falters. “I -“

“I mean, it just _sucks_ you know, I - oh _shoot_ ,” The glass Maggie had been holding shatters when she drops it accidentally. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

She slides off the stool to try and pick up the shards before someone accidentally steps in them but stumbles as she does, and bumps into someone who’d been passing by her. She ends up nose to nose with a woman, who looks, for lack of better words, like she’s about two seconds away from pummelling Maggie back into the bar.

And, Maggie realises gazing at her intently, that she looks really familiar - _blonde, spandex._ It clicks after a long second and _wow,_ she must be really drunk if it had taken her this long to recognise National City’s resident superhero.

Supergirl gives her a look that manages to be shrewd and puppy-like at the same time. “Detective Sawyer.”

“Supergirl, have you seen -oh“

Voice carrying her over, Alex appears from somewhere behind Supergirl and comes to an immediate stop when she sees Maggie next to her. 

“Maggie?”

“Danvers!” Maggie exclaims, and is about to say something more when Supergirl interrupts her, looking kind of impatient. Probably for the best because Maggie might have said something stupid like _I miss you_. 

  “We’re looking for someone,” she says and Alex gives an awkward nod at her side.

Maggie’s stomach swoops with disappointment that Alex hadn’t come to see her but starts to sober up a bit at Supergirl’s words. “Oh? Something I can help with?”

Alex and Supergirl exchange a look. 

“Someone in our ranks went missing a few weeks ago,” Alex tells her reluctantly. “We think we know who is responsible, but we’re trying to find someone with ties to them.”

“Cadmus?” the word is out of Maggie’s mouth before she can think of the repercussions of it. Supergirl looks immediately suspicious and Alex looks surprised.   

“You know about cadmus?” Supergirl questions, crossing her arms. Maggie scowls at her, not liking the inflection she can hear there.

“I mean they've been broadcasting anti-alien propaganda all across National City for months,” she shoots back sarcastically. “I think I would have to be blind and deaf not to know what it is and what they’re _really_ doing.”

Supergirl looks slightly chastened. 

“We should go,” Alex says and, still not looking directly at her, grabs Supergirl by the arm to tow her away. 

Maggie know enough about Kryptonians to know that Supergirl wouldn’t budge had Alex been exerting all her strength, but the way she goes with her willingly piques her interest. 

She waits until the door shuts behind them before turning back to M’gann with a sigh. “Another drink?”

 

\- 

The next time she sees Alex, she gets shot. Actually gets _shot._

One second she’s studying some kind of fluid on the ground, left behind after a visit from the all-too real threat that seems to be cadmus’ work. The next she’s got a gun pointed at her and her partner is face down, unconscious, on the ground a few feet away.

 And, staring at the crazed look on this guys face, Maggie is really starting to wish she’d called in for backup when she’d had the chance.

The scene becomes chaotic when Supergirl shows up, a handful of DEO agents behind her and Maggie gets shot. She doesn’t even see him pull the trigger because she’s spotted Alex right behind him, her face full of concentration, and instead only hears the crack of the gun as he fires.

When it makes contact, Maggie stumbles backwards with the pressure the bullet exerts and then hits the ground, gasping for breath as pain ripples through her abdomen. Supergirl is suddenly hovering above her, face devoid of colour, and then she disappears, Alex now in her place and looking terrified. 

“Maggie, oh my god,” her shaking hands go immediately to her front and she lets out an audible sigh of relief when her fingers brush against the hard material of the vest encasing Maggie’s torso. “Are you okay?”

Maggie rolls over to her side, her ears ringing. “I’m fine,” she says and winces as her ribs throb with the pressure of her moving. “ _Shit.”_

Alex helps her stand and Maggie, thoroughly winded, leans on her for support. The area around them is now silent - Maggie thinks she must have blacked out for a second during the fighting - and Supergirl has disappeared. 

“You need to get checked out,” Alex says worriedly and Maggie is so close to her she can see flecks of the different shades of brown in her eyes. “You could have damaged something internal from the impact of the bullet.”

“I’m fine,” Maggie says, _wheezes_ really, and her ribs throb even harder as if to say _fuck you_. 

Alex gives her a tight-lipped look of irritation and lets her go, only to have to quickly grab hold of her again when Maggie sways on the spot with the loss of support. 

“You need to go to the hospital.”

Maggie raises an eyebrow. “And wait 6 hours in the ER? no thanks.”

She gets an frown in return. “Fine. You’re coming back to the DEO then.”

“You have two fractured ribs,” Alex says, less than an hour later as she hands her the X-ray she’d forced Maggie into having, pointing to the little breaks in the bones. Looking at it, Maggie groans. 

Now that she's deemed that she is out of immediate danger, Alex has gone back to being tentative and avoiding looking directly at her. “I can tape them for you if you want…unless you want to go to the -“  

“No,” Maggie groans again. “I’d rather you do it.”

Alex’s hands are extremely gently as she goes to work, silent and with her brow furrowed in complete concentration. Maggie watches her and thinks about how she would have made a really great doctor if she had pursued it like she told Maggie she’d wanted to when she was younger.

The process of taping relatively painless and by the time it’s over, Alex doesn’t look as tense as she had. She’s almost smiling when Maggie gets up to leave. “I would tell you to take a few days off to heal but I think it would be pointless.”

Maggie grins at her and tucks her vest, the tiny bullet still lodged in the middle of it, right near where her heart is, over her arm. “You think right - but seriously, thank you. This is the second time you’ve patched me up.”

Alex waves her off. “It’s nothing.”

“Really, Alex, thank you.”

Maybe it’s because Maggie sounds sincere or maybe it’s because she calls her Alex instead of Danvers - and she can count how many times she's done that on one hand - but either way, Alex actually smiles at her.

Maggie files that smile away and ignores the way it makes her heart beat a little faster every time she thinks about it. 

 

(Because she likes Alex. A lot. When everything was okay between them, her visits to the bar and the time they spent together working on cases were the highlights of her day.

And that is not a good thing. At least not now. )

 

_(Not yet )_

\- 

In the days after being shot - or just narrowly avoiding being shot, thanks to her vest - Maggie ends up back at the bar, not drinking, of course, because it clashes with her pain killers but she needs to unwind after the week she’s had and the bar has become her safe haven in the few years she's frequented it. 

And as it turned out, Alex hadn't needed to try and get her to rest, because her boss puts her on desk duty the second he hears about what happened. 

As soon as he'd said it Maggie had complained and sulked as loudly - and unprofessionally - as possible but he didn't budge, so she gets stuck filing report after report from crime scenes she _should_ have been at. 

When she walks into the bar that night, she doesn’t expect to spot Alex at the pool table by herself, setting up the table. She hesitates for a second, before going over there, thinking that if Alex didn’t want to talk to her that badly, then she wouldn't have come to Maggie’s bar.

“Danvers,” she greets, when she’s a few feet away, and can’t quite keep her voice from sounding quizzical. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Alex shrugs, her eyes flying up to meet hers. “I got off work early - how are you feeling?”

“Not too bad,” Maggie says. “Being on desk duty is torture though.”

The look on Alex’s face turns sympathetic and she makes a noise to reflect it as she places the pool cue she’d been holding on the table. “Oh that sucks.”

Maggie hums noncommittally. “Yeah, it’s not the most fun i’ve had in my life.”

Alex smiles, briefly, awkwardly, while her eyes dart around looking at anything except Maggie herself. “Yeah it wouldn't be, uh - I should go,” she only gets about two steps away before Maggie stops her.   

“Wait. Stay.” 

She watches as Alex falters, her shoulders drooping, before she turns around. Maggie’s heart sinks at the resolute look on her face. “Look, Maggie, I still need…”

“Time,” Maggie says for her when Alex trails off and she nods. “I get it - I do. But can we just talk for a minute?”

Alex hesitates, looking uncertain.

  “Please? ”

 By some miracle, Alex agrees and they end up sitting at the table they used to before everything had happened and Maggie vows not to talk about it but then they sit down and - 

“About what happened,” she says. The second the words leave her mouth, Alex immediately looks uncomfortable but Maggie pushes ahead. “I want to talk about it.”

  “We really don’t need to, I thought we already established that.” 

“No,” Maggie says gently and Alex looks down at her hands. “We really didn’t and I think we need to talk about it.”

“I get it,” Alex says, still looking down at her hands. “You don’t…feel like that about me. I really do get it, Maggie, but that I need time.”

And she looks upset - so upset that Maggie kind of wants to hug her like she had that day, but the fractured ribs and the awkwardness in the air kind of makes it an impossible task. 

  It hits her what Alex said. And then Maggie wonders why she’s surprised that Alex thinks she doesn’t like her like that. 

“Alex ..”

“I really should go.”

Alex stands, her drink still untouched. Maggie grabs her by the arm before she can even take a step this time. 

“I do like you,” she admits quickly and Alex looks down at her, surprised. “Alex, I _really_ do like you.”

There’s confusion and then resignation in Alex’s eyes. “Yeah, I know. But not like that.”

“No,” Maggie says loudly, starting to feel frustrated. “I do. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Clearly flabbergasted, Alex stares at her. “But then why..?”

“We’re not in the same place,” Alex sighs and goes to tug her arm away but Maggie holds on tighter. “No. We aren’t and you know it. Danvers, realising what you have is so, so huge.”

“I know,” Alex says. “I _know_ that.”

“Well, I remember what it was like and I would have regretted jumping into something with a girl so soon after. I don’t want you to have any regrets about coming out.”

“You think I would regret you?”

Maggie spots the dawning awareness in Alex’s voice and presses her lips together. “I mean, maybe not right away, but…”

Alex sits back down, eyebrows knitting together. “I can’t believe you would think that.”

“I just think it’s important for you to figure things out yourself. Not with -” _the first gay woman you meet._ “With someone else.”

Alex looks like she wants to argue, but seems to see something in Maggie’s eyes and falls silent instead. “Do you get what i’m saying?”   


“Yes,” Alex tells her. “I do. But I think you’re wrong.”

Maggie smiles ruefully, because she kind of feels like she’s wrong too. “Maybe I am.”

At that, Alex sighs, but most of the guardedness she’s been toting around since the day she’d kissed her has fallen away in quick strokes. The look on her face is understanding - not wounded anymore.

“I think you still owe me a drink,” she says after a moment and her lips curve up into a smile when Maggie almost falls over herself in her eagerness to get her one, because _it feels like they might actually be friends again._

-

( when they have their second kiss, months later, Maggie pulls away and says _“wow”_ like she had the first time. The only difference is that Alex doesn’t leave in tears and Maggie doesn’t feel like the worst person in the world for making her cry. 

What happens instead is this: Maggie tugging Alex toward her again, and feeling her smile against her lips as she kisses her )

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts are totally appreciated (and revered) so feel free to leave some!
> 
> (title taken from atlas hands by benjamin francis leftwich)
> 
> (ps. follow me on tumblr @somnambulants)


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